Little Big Man: A Novel

The Wild West is something of an obsessive hobby for effete, psychologically wobbly "man of letters" Ralph Fielding Snell. Despite the disapproval of his father, Snell has the money and leisure "to pursue my literary and historical interests with relative indifference to, and immunity from, the workaday world, for which, notwithstanding, I have the greatest respect."Snell serves as a somewhat cracked conduit for the swear-it's-true life story of frontiersman Jack Crabb. Snell encounters Jack in an old folks home, for which Jack certainly qualifies: He claims to be 111 years old and recounts several of those years to Snell before reaching "the end of his trail."Jack's recollections begin in the 1850s when he is separated from his family of would-be Mormons at the age of 10. A meeting for friendly drinks on the prairie with a band of Cheyenne goes horribly wrong. Neither whites nor Indians prove capable of holding their spirits. In fact, by the end of the party, the white men's spirits have taken flight from the corporeal world altogether, leaving physical bodies skewered and cleft.The women decide to turn back to the protection of Fort Laramie, but Jack's mannish, whip-wielding sister, Caroline, announces that she and Jack will take up with the Cheyenne, surprising the Indians as much as her little brother. "It's useless to speculate about what she thought she knew or what she imagined, because they was always all mixed together."When Caroline realizes a life of exotic romance is not in store (in fact, the Indians are shocked to discover she's female), she steals a pony and sneaks off, leaving Jack with the tribe. "My own position turned out to be orphan attached to the chief's lodge, which gave me the right to benevolent consideration from the whole family just as if I was related to them by blood. ... The women were obliged to give me clothes and food, and the men to see I grew up into a man." The Cheyenne, led by Old Lodge Skins, teach Jack "the way of the Human Beings."Jack, though still a boy and small in stature, comes off pretty manly during a horse-thieving skirmish against a rival band of Crow, so Old Lodge Skins renames Jack "Little Big Man."Despite frequent fatalities, war among the tribes is a relatively good-natured activity, but it's becoming clear that something's going to have to be done about those pesky white people. "The Army didn't fight by the rules and no doubt would not have if they knew them." A grand war council is convened, and plans are made to "rub them out." Jack has little problem with the concept in theory, but when confronted by a saber-waving cavalry charge barreling straight for him, "one big mowing machine with many hundred bright blades that chopped into dust all life before it and spewed it out behind," he can't scrub the warpaint off his face fast enough.So begins Jack's reversion to white man status. He's adopted by the Rev. Silas Pendrake and subjected to the civilizing influence of church, school, female duplicity, sexual hangups and pneumonia. "I believed my blood was getting watery from the lack of raw buffalo liver. The only thing I learned so far that seemed to take real root was lustful yearnings, and the Reverend told me they was wrong."Jack finds that his years living among Human Beings have made him ill-equipped for city life. He runs away to the grubby gold-prospecting encampment that's growing into what will become Denver. He's more comfortable among the mule skinners trading there, but when they're set upon by his former brethren of the Cheyenne, he's quick to assert his affinity for the Indians. Although Old Lodge Skins welcomes him back, Jack has become too familiar with white man's progress to believe the Cheyenne way will last. The whites have dug in, and they're not going anyplace. "I never heard of a natural force that would tear cellar walls from the earth." He advises his foster family to head north and stay away from the whites.Jack won't be going with them. "I had been doing right well in Denver. I had got onto the idea of ambition. You can't make anything of yourself in the white world unless you grasp that concept. But there isn't even a way to express the idea in Cheyenne."After the Civil War, the U.S. government is able to devote its undivided attention to eradicating the Indians. In turn, the Cheyenne hook up with the Sioux and Arapaho to terrorize white settlements. In the tit-for-tat hostilities, Jack loses a white wife and child and gains an Indian replacement set.Ralph Fielding Snell observes that "Jack Crabb seemed to specialize in the art or craft of coincidence." Jack is always perfectly positioned in front-row seats for the major events in Western history, personally interacting with the major players. He works the Colorado gold rush, witnesses the cross-country extension of the Union Pacific, takes part in the extinction of the buffalo. He meets Wild Bill Hickock, Wyatt Earp and the luciferian-nicknamed Son of the Morning Star, George Armstrong Custer. The arrogant cavalry general provides a white counterpoint to Old Lodge Skins as the father figure who has the biggest impact on Jack.Jack is a man perpetually straddling a spiritual border: Among whites, he feels Indian; among Indians, he sees himself as "white to the core." And generally, he has the bad timing to be on whichever side is losing at the moment.All this vacillation between societies might make Jack appear unsympathetic as a character, a man without strong loyalties. As soon as his life is threatened, he switches persona, abandoning friends, family and lovers. It's a device by which author Thomas Berger can show both sides of the conflict. Jack encounters very few clear-cut good guys or bad guys in the white population centers. The Indians are neither the nobles of James Fenimore Cooper's novels nor the savages of George Armstrong Custer's prejudices. All of them are part of the same cast of fools myopically clawing for meatier parts in the epic tragicomedy of Western expansion. The Cheyenne refer to themselves as Human Beings to assert their superiority over others, but their actions throughout the book are just as likely to live down as live up to that term. Even Custer, the closest thing the book has to a villain, is portrayed as more of a preening fool and an egotistical loon.Lest the historians complain, Berger makes it clear that Jack Crabb is quite likely full of beans (and keep in mind the additional filter of Ralph Fielding Snell). Jack is spinning a yarn in which the facts don't stand a chance against the truth. "Little Big Man" is what would generally be referred to as a "revisionist" western, though that can be a term by which critics reveal their ignorance of the genre, and it tends to belittle and downplay the mature groundwork laid by practitioners of that genre before the serious literary types came along to play. Revisionist westerns seldom revise as much as they think they do, but the best of them reside comfortably alongside the classics. OF the genre, not outside it or above it or, worst of all, transcending it."Little Big Man" is a damn fine western. It's also a damn fine piece of literature if you're one of those insecure Yankee types.

Beautifully written, sensitive, funny, historically accurate and - more importantly - insightful. Could have been edited a bit more but that’s just a quibble.

I saw the movie that was based on this book in my thesis year of studying architecture in college. I didn't recall that until I started reading this book and had to Google the movie to find the release date, December 23, 1970. I also couldn't believe the movie was 50 years old or that this year was the 50th anniversary of my graduating college. I immediately sent out a reminder to all those guys with whom I shared many sleepless days and nights bent over drawing boards in an old repurposed bra and girdle factory that housed our college of architecture and art at UIC. I do recall that seeing that movie was a rare break from my studies and my research as my thesis resurrected a thesis option, architectural humanities, that hadn't be used in 20 years. I was tired of drawing boards and thought writing might be a change of pace so I spent my 5th year in the library and then at home typing. That movie came out during Christmas break and was something of a treat but I didn't become aware of the book until recently when I ran across some GR reviews of the book that piqued my interest. I ordered a copy and now after finishing it I am glad I didn't read this book earlier.In the last few years I have managed to read several incredibly good books on the westward expansion of this country and the ensuing conflict that expansion caused with Native Americans. This reading allowed me to view this book in a way that wouldn't have been possible with an earlier reading. The book has a much greater impact if the reader is familiar with the history of our Indian Wars as this book is almost a mythological synopsis of the plight of the Plains Indians and the encroaching whites. There is almost no event or person of significance in that history that the protagonist of this tale was not present for or knew and had dealings with. I will also say, as much as my memory of the movie allows, that that movie was rarity in its loyalty to the book and its story. Not knowing the history involved in this story could have the reader of this fiction believing that the stories of Jack Crabb, the protagonist, are just that, fiction. They are not.Since the book and the movie are now 50+ years old it is possible that many may be unfamiliar with the story of this book. It is about a man, Jack Crabb, claiming to be a 111 year man and lone survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn. A curious writer finds Crabb and induces him to tell his story. Crabb agrees and recounts his life from about the age of 10 when his family's small wagon train to the West encounters a band of Cheyenne Indians. Because of an excess of alcohol violence results and Jack ends up being adopted and raised by the Cheyenne chief. Again thanks to my prior reading I was able to appreciate the accuracy of the author in describing life in an Indian village and the social and governing structure of Indian tribes. Each chapter is an episode in Jack's back and forth life between living as an Indian and returning to life in white society as well as the people he meets along the way and the events he either witnesses or lives through. It would be an understatement to say that Jack had an extraordinary life and that is probably part of the author's intent, an intent I will need time to think about. The author makes a point through the fictional writer of saying that there is no way to determine how much, if any, of Jack's story is true and it is for the reader to decide. What I got from this read is that the more you know about our Western history the more this book will give you to think about. I will be doing that for awhile but in the meantime I strongly recommend this book. Enjoy.

This is one of the greatest American period novels, the equivalent of MOBY DICK but set in the Wild West on the Plains, rather than on the Pacific Ocean. It is much better and richer than the film adaptation, so don't be put off reading it if you have seen the film. It was written nearly 60 years ago, but it still stands up as one of the best of all American novels, and for sure one of the two or three best novels ever written about the West, along with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and The Legend of El Chivato by Elizabeth Fackler.

An absolutely delightful narrative through a wondrous time in American history. Jack Crabb’s speaking style and keen observations make this personal tour of Indian and white man dynamics an unforgettable adventure. Although Jack’s reported participation in these adventures are probably a result of his lying through his teeth, his recounting of them is true to historical record. And that alone makes the entire narration something worth savoring. Brilliant use of my time.

There is much more to this novel than one would guess from the film (which was played more as comedy than a serious critique). While the novel has comic moments, the bigger picture is a serious one. For instance, there’s a lot about Indian life, beliefs, and culture. Different aspects of white communities are revealed too, as Jack tries to make his way in life. He’s a chancer, ready to take whatever advantage he can of his situation, and with loyalties both to whites and to Indians. It’s a good story, told well. It’s also full of information about Indians’ lives and their beliefs, which stand in contrast with those of the white society. Neither is idealised, neither is presented as ‘right’. An excellent read.

An outstanding story, well written and completely gripping from beginning to end. It's portrayal of the Old West and the nobility of the Cheyenne Native Americans compared to the double-dealing of the U.S. government is a shocking contrast to the Hollywood Westerns we grew up with. Berger's account of the personality of Custer fits well with other accounts of the Boy General's behaviour, notably Stephen J Ambrose's "Crazy Horse and Custer". This volume is well worth reading and the DVD of Little Big Man starring Dustin Hoffman is remarkably true to the original Berger text. Thoroughly recommended .

Finest western novel ever written. Ignore the film which doesn't remotely do it justice.

Excellent read. Funny, interesting, the story flows, the author is an amazing narrator.

Excellent Thomas Berger authorship.